Melbourne underworld figure Mick Gatto was not defamed by an online ABC article reporting on witness evidence given in court alleging he helped arrange the murder of Victor Pierce and threatened to kill barrister Nicola Gobbo, a judge has ruled.
A lawyer who a judge accused of “abysmal arrogance and sense of privilege” has won her appeal of a ruling ordering her to pay $360,000 to her Balmain neighbour after a long-running property dispute culminated in an allegedly defamatory interview that was broadcast to over one million TV viewers on A Current Affair.
Horizon Oil has won its bid to shield Herbert Smith Freehills documents advising the company did not breach foreign bribery laws from being revealed in a defamation lawsuit brought against Fairfax Media by a Papua New Guinea government Minister.
Former Labor MP Melissa Parke has failed in her bid to strike down the honest opinion defence of Herald Sun executive Dr Colin Rubenstein in her lawsuit alleging the director defamed her in an email and article relating to her 2019 pre-selection speech.
A barrister for a Sydney criminal lawyer who wears hearing aids and is suing News Corp’s Nationwide News over allegedly defamatory Daily Telegraph articles referring to his profound deafness has likened the stories to accusing bespectacled lawyers of being blind.
Nine-owned Fairfax will have to pay out over $2 million in legal fees after being hit with indemnity costs on top of a $280,000 judgment in its defamation spat with venture capitalist Dr Elaine Stead for its “Micawber-like” approach to the case.
Fairfax has hit back at claims in a lawsuit that the publisher defamed a barrister in an article alleging he helped Texas billionaire Bob Brockman defraud the United States of US$2 billion in taxes, denying the article defamed the lawyer and saying the report was an honest summary of publically available information.
Venture capitalist Dr Elaine Stead is seeking indemnity costs after being awarded $280,000 in her defamation case against Nine-owned Fairfax, which she accuses of rejecting several settlement offers with “bugger off letters” and engaging in a “petulant campaign” of media coverage post-judgment.
The wealthy founder of auto repair franchisor Ultra Tune has secured a temporary injunction against his ex-girlfriend and a former employee prohibiting them from distributing secret recordings after excerpts from one damaging audio file were published by Fairfax.
Chinese businessman Dr Chau Chak Wing has been awarded $590,000 in a Federal Court judgment that found an ABC Four Corner’s report contained “untrue and seriously defamatory imputations” about alleged espionage, bribery of UN leaders, and links to the Chinese Communist Party.